Brian Long

30 hours in and nearing the final section of the game I have to say it's not a Final Fantasy game. Combat is fun for the brief moments you get to play in between the massive cutscenes, but even that gets old after so many repetitions. There is no strategy, no party, no elements, (de)buffs, weapon choice, gear choice, stat choices, open world or over world, items to find, dungeons, hidden bosses, or character building for friends. There are brief nods to chocobos, a moogle, some of the classic music, names of FF enemies/summons, and crystals. This was about all the Final Fantasy that was included in the 16th installment of Final Fantasy. There is only combat and cutscenes. The gameplay loop is simply watch a 20-30 minute cutscene, walk through a narrow corridor of some type, kill 3 enemies, kill 3 more, fight a boss, watch 20 -30 minutes more of a cutscene. At best this is a weird Final Fantasy spinoff game. At worst it's the future of the franchise and 15 was the last mainline Final Fantasy game that retained any DNA from the last 30 years of the franchise's existence.